A brief introduction to traditional
Sami song and the modern music.

Sami Music

The traditional Sami songstyle is always referred to as Joik in the english language (originally Jojk/Juoigan) but it is actually only one of several modes of Sami singing. The Joik is often compared to Amerind chanting, a description that is correct insofar it sounds similar, yet a joik is not a song about a person or place but an attempt of the joiker to sing the essence of the subject. This songmode is higly personal and touches upon the subject of Sami spirituality and will therefore not be discussed further here.

The other modes is called lavlu/laavloe and vuelie and the word "Joik" is often used incorrectly for these other modes. It is hard to explain these other "songstyles" in a few words but a laavloe is singed with words or lyrics whereas a vuelie is a storytelling song about a person or an event, in part this later style
might incorporate chanting without words.
All three modes of singing does still exists in the Sami society, and in recent years there has been a renewed interest among the younger generation, a few Sami artists even have reintroduced the traditional drums as a rythminstrument to accompany
the joik. Sami's also used an instrument which also are found amongst some other "native" cultures -the bullroarer- a specially shaped piece of horn or wood that was attached to a string. The sound was created swinging it around in circles over the head. By adjusting the speed and length of the string the player could create different pitch and sounds, the Sami's also used the flute and possibly invented it independent of other cultures.

Those with Netscape 3 and those with midi plugin will hear a short melody, originally played by Per Nutti in 1914 on a Fadnu flute.

With the constant flow of modern music on TV and radio it is not strange that some Sami artists have mixed rock and other types of modern music and thereby created a type of "worldmusic" of their own -often with interesting results.

North Sami music.

The most wellknown examples of Sami music is sadly from non native artists, Engima has made a tune in which an Sami joik can be heard. Jazz saxophonist Jan Garbarek have used Sami musical themes on several occations on his records, the first track on "Legend of the seven dreams" is agood example based on a personal joik by the Sami artist Nils-Aslak Valkeapää (Finland).
The later is a splendid artist on his own, almost more known by his native name Ailohas. He have made several records of his own and in cooperation with other artists such as Esa Kotilainen on Beavi Ahcazan "Father sun", one of the tunes there is a Joik lasting almost 20 minutes. (Image of Ailohas by webmaster, july 1997 at left).
Catarina Utsi made a record Baze dearvan goahtoeanan with Paulus Utsi's beautiful poetry as songtexts, the guitarist Jukka Tolonen (Finland) participated in this production which was artistically interesting with unusual rythms on some tracks. One other group who probably is fairly unknown outside the Sami nation is Annel Nieiddat (Finland) but proportionally very popular in the Sami society.
But the single Sami artist who have reached a worldwide audience is Marie Boine, (Norway) who sang on a TV-program which was broadcast in most of the countries of the world during the international indigenous year. She has also cooperated with Peter Gabriel on one "Realworld" record. Her most interesting works however are on the solo-albums Jaskatvoda manna "After the silence" -where some texts could be seen as exellent poetry by themselves- and Gula gula which had some international success, in part trough the help if the producer Jan Erik Kongshaug (Norway, who also have produced Jan Garbarek mentioned above) and since Realworld distributed and marketed the album.

Finally a description of modern north-Sami music wouldn't be complete without mentioning Wimme Saari (Finland), we'll end this description with an image of him when he made a performance in Vålådalen, Sweden in June 1996.

South Sami music.

During the second decade of this century South-sami joik was first recorded on an "Edison" phonograph. Fifty years later the Swedish broadcasting corporation made a set of recordings which resulted in a double album with south-Sami chanting titled "Joik". The first music the South Sami's themselves recorded become an album named
Åarjeden Laavloeh "Songs from the southern edge" produced by Östersund Sami society (Sweden), since then a few other records have been made. Most notable is Frode Fjellheim's (Norway) Mijjieh Vuelieh
"Our songs" and Almetjh Tjööngkeme's (Sweden) Vaajesh "~The narratives".

Comparision with the Nenets.

Elsewhere on this website we mention the "Circumpolar culture" in this context it is
interesting to find that the Nenets people also have three traditional songmodes

1. "The narrative songs"

2. "The owned (lyric) songs"

3. "The shamanistic songs"
These corresponds closely to the Sami songmodes Vuelie, Laavloe & Joik described above.
For one in depth study on Nenets songs you might follow this link.
The types of Nenets song